What shenanigans are your players up to?

[StevenC21]

Note: My group is playing D&D 3.5e, and so my examples will be d20 centric, but shenanigans from any TTRPG are welcome

I have a very interesting group of players.

One of them, a Cleric, has become obsessed with Create Water. He has a Bag of Holding, and every day he spends all his Orisons to fill that sucker up with water. He's going to fill it with all 540 gallons that his BoH can hold... His intention is then to use it as a weapon by creating a small, controlled flood afterwards. He calls his bag "a portal to my Water Dimension".

I have another player, a Dread Necromancer, who recently got access to Animate Dead... as a result, he got a basement. Now, whenever any lowly NPC annoys him, he mugs them, drags them down there and feeds them to his zombies. What's hilarious is that since Dread Necromancers cast off Charisma, he's also the upstanding pillar of society to most people around him. On the side he also goes around town and murderhobo's anyone who pissed him off.

I think that eventually I'm going to have the party get hired to "identify and capture a local serial killer", that will turn out to be none other than our Dread Necromancer. Nobody else knows about his murderous inclinations. That's going to be fun.

[Quertus]

I think that eventually I'm going to have the party get hired to "identify and capture a local serial killer"

Is there anything linking the killings? Or is this just "a rash of disappearances" rather than "the work of a serial killer"?

[StevenC21]

Yes. The Dread Necromancer has a penchant for attacking members of the upper class, and merchants. These tend to overlap in the setting, anyways.

[Great Dragon]

5e D&D.

The Players in my (2nd level) Saturday games have decided to start a "Kill Competition" (ala Gimli and Legolas) and just recently decided to add "Style Points" as well.

Things they have done so far:
The Fighter (Half-Orc with 20 Str) managed to kill three Goblins by kicking the door apart!

The Halfling Rogue did a Critical sneak attack on a Hobgoblin! (I'm sure you can imagine how he described that..)

The Dwarven Barbarian has now "Cleaved" three foes in half!!

[HouseRules]

He calls his bag "a portal to my Water Dimension".

Looks like someone wants a Demiplane of Water.

[StevenC21]

Oh, absolutely.

He's currently only level 5, though, so an official demiplane is a bit off.

[HouseRules]

Pre 3E:

• Haste = Double target movement speed; Side effects Caster and Target age 1 year
• Slow = Half target movement speed

3.0: Haste = Additional Partial Action
3.5: Haste = Additional Standard Action

Balance Haste spell by returning it to the old-school version is best.

Shenanigans including using lower level spells with the effects of high level spells.
Using low level spells to imitate high level spells is legal, but to take on the effects of high level spells is not.
Game Masters must allow the former, but forbid the latter.

[VonKaiserstein]

5e DnD, Curse of Strahd. My party, in all their infinite wisdom, had the Druid call dibs on the Sunsword, once they finally got it. It was a longsword, so he wasn't proficient. And being a druid, he tended to fight in Dire wolf form, but he hadn't had any magic items, so he felt it was time to get one.

His solution to the non-proficiency? He's multicalssed to Monk... and still isn't proficient. So he's using the Sunsword, their great hope against Strahd, as an improvised weapon while the Dwarven Barbarian is just shaking his head, and the Cleric is praying for patience.

[NRSASD]

5e DnD, Curse of Strahd. My party, in all their infinite wisdom, had the Druid call dibs on the Sunsword, once they finally got it. It was a longsword, so he wasn't proficient. And being a druid, he tended to fight in Dire wolf form, but he hadn't had any magic items, so he felt it was time to get one.

His solution to the non-proficiency? He's multicalssed to Monk... and still isn't proficient. So he's using the Sunsword, their great hope against Strahd, as an improvised weapon while the Dwarven Barbarian is just shaking his head, and the Cleric is praying for patience.

My party went full letter-bomber on Strahd. Blew up one of his prized henchmen with a letter that begins with the phrase "My dear sweet summer vampire"

[Kardwill]

My PCs purchased the freakin' dungeon...

In my Dresden Files campaigns, Boston's vampire court took control of a medium-sized pharmaceutic lab specialized in blood research, and are using it to perform all sort of shady experiments on live subjects in nearby hospitals. Boosting their blood powers, creating vampire hybrids, waking an age-old abomination trapped by the native tribe under the city's hills, the usual kind of creepy-bad stuff in your run of the mill conspiracy/urban fantasy game.

So I expected the usual "investigate, then break and enter to get proof" from the players once they understood the lab was doing shady stuff. Especially since one of the PCs is a Prometheus-scion-retired-burglar.

What I did not expect was them
- a : Using their network of business contact (including the vampire court lawyer being the girlfriend of one of them) to uncover and contact as many shareholders of the lab as they could
- b : Using the personnal wealth of the Prometheus scion (the PC has a +5 "ressource" skill, which in Fate scores somewhere between "filthy rich" and "Bruce Wayne") to buy enough shares and bribe enough support to get a control majority on the lab's administrative board.
- c : Ordering a board meeting the next morning, where they asked for an immediate and complete audit of the lab's activities
- d : Organising a public gala to celebrate the takeover and rub it in the vampire court's face.

the next sessions should be pretty different from what I initially planned. A few years ago I would probably have prevented this because of GM panick "realism" (simply by deciding the vampires' control of their assets was strong enough to prevent that kind of tactic), but it was a nice surprise attack/change of pace, and nowadays I love when players hijack the campaign this way. ^^

[The Random NPC]

Oh, absolutely.

He's currently only level 5, though, so an official demiplane is a bit off.

FYI, 540 gallons is a little less than three caskets worth of water. In a 10x10 room that's going to be about 8 inches of water. The initial outpouring would likely be forceful though. And of course, don't let science get in the way of fun.

[hotflungwok]

So last night my players nearly lost a fight to a summoned spiked pit.

The arcanist cast Spiked Pit on a pair of displacer beasts. One fell in, one made it's save. The one on the surface was hexed to sleep by the witch. The oracle then decides, despite being told not to get close to the pit, to get close to the pit (so he can cast something on the displacer beast trying to climb out). The fighter decides he's going to try to help the gnome as he has good saving throws, he falls in. The bloodrager also decides his saving throws are good enough to risk it, manages to save the first round, and lowers a rope. The oracle ignores the rope and channels positive energy. The 2nd round the bloodrager falls in, still holding the rope. The fighter starts to climb out. The arcanist casts Fly and descends into the pit to try to help people out, forgetting (momentarily) about the displacer beast halfway up the wall. The fighter takes a swing at the displacer beast who is now beating on the hovering arcanist, knocking it down. Eventually they kill the displacer beast, and make it out. So between the pit, the spikes, and various things falling on each other, that one spell did more damage to the party than I managed to do with all the monsters in the original (supposedly easy) encounter.

[Phhase]

My PCs purchased the freakin' dungeon...

Hit em' right where it hurts, in the moneybags!

FYI, 540 gallons is a little less than three caskets worth of water. In a 10x10 room that's going to be about 8 inches of water. The initial outpouring would likely be forceful though. And of course, don't let science get in the way of fun.

Interesting unit choice.

[The Random NPC]

Hit em' right where it hurts, in the moneybags!



Interesting unit choice.

I needed something that people have a decent idea of the size, and caskets were the first thing that came to mind.

[jintoya]

I needed something that people have a decent idea of the size, and caskets were the first thing that came to mind.

https://www.pool1.com/pool_gallon_calculator.htm

This is Handy

[halfeye]

I needed something that people have a decent idea of the size, and caskets were the first thing that came to mind.

So how big is a casket (do you mean coffin)? Are they a standard size?

[The Random NPC]

So how big is a casket (do you mean coffin)? Are they a standard size?

Caskets are what most people think coffins are. The major difference is that a casket has four sides, while a coffin has six sides. The other difference is that coffins are generally cheaper.

While I don't believe there is an industry standard for the size of either, there are average sizes for them. Last I had checked, the average volume of a casket is ~200 gallons.

https://www.pool1.com/pool_gallon_calculator.htm

This is Handy

Every couple of years I go searching for something like this, with one key difference. I'd like to input the square footage and gallons and have it tell me the depth of the water (assuming a sufficiently high retaining wall).

[Lord Torath]

There are 231 cubic inches per gallon, and 144 square inches per square foot. Height = volume / area of the base.

Height in inches = gallons x 231 / (square feet x 144)

If you want the height in feet, divide the previous answer by 12

Spoiler: More information

Show

The basic equation is just Height = volume / area. The rest is just conversion factors.

What's a conversion factor? A particular way of writing the number "1".

For example, 1 gallon = 231 in³. Therefore, 1 = 1 gallon/231 in³ and 1 = 231 in³/1 gallon.

The trick is to make it so the units cancel out so you end up with the final units you want. If you start out with gallons, then you want the conversion factor that has gallons in the bottom and the cubic inches in the top. Gallon/Gallon = 1, so you're left with cubic inches.

Here's a website that goes into further detail.

[Tajerio]

In my current campaign, one of my players asked if there were any "fun herbs" around while the party were waiting for an NPC to arrive. Two of them had pretty good ranks in Knowledge (nature) so I let them roll for it, and they discovered a plant with intoxicating properties. They have subsequently sought to use them at every opportunity, including handing an extract around at a feast while on a diplomatic mission, and sneaking a large prepared packet of them onto a fire in order to hotbox a cave full of orcs, in the belief that "no one's that hostile when they're on weed."

It might be obnoxious in the hands of a different group of players, but so far it's just been amusing--and it's really stretched my capacity for improvisational dialogue as a GM.

[jintoya]

In my current campaign, one of my players asked if there were any "fun herbs" around while the party were waiting for an NPC to arrive. Two of them had pretty good ranks in Knowledge (nature) so I let them roll for it, and they discovered a plant with intoxicating properties. They have subsequently sought to use them at every opportunity, including handing an extract around at a feast while on a diplomatic mission, and sneaking a large prepared packet of them onto a fire in order to hotbox a cave full of orcs, in the belief that "no one's that hostile when they're on weed."

It might be obnoxious in the hands of a different group of players, but so far it's just been amusing--and it's really stretched my capacity for improvisational dialogue as a GM.

Had a player who did things like this, I just added an effect to it that slowly drained his wisdom or intelligence after 5 hours of exposure, just because it was annoying me and killing the fun for everyone but him. (He was using it as an excuse to act chaotic-stupid, so I actually had it stupify him)

Best part was that only half the drain would heal, after this he was less careless with it.
Because it was not used in Mass quantity before, no know. (Nature) could have told them this... Some things are only learned by doing them.

My contribution is something I'm about to do, and will be posting a thread to help me with the particulars, but I'm going to play the long game and troll a god who is dropping avatars (multiple heads, multiple avatars)
But I'll do it by kidnapping and replacing everyone around him with greater fetches.
Last time he killed a whole city when I fought him, this time.... I'll just remove the citizens so nobody gets hurt.

[Jakinbandw]

Right now my players are working on convincing the {Scrubbed} equivalent of my world that she is wrong and eternally torturing souls is not cool. They are also working with her to go back in time to bring the Old Gods (who have only been dead for a year) back to life.

Other than that they are mostly just goofing off before their final battle against the leaders of the monsters from another dimension that have invaded their Fantasy world. Just doing things like helping towns defend against giants, build new races and relax a bit. Also messing around a bit with the astral plane that they claimed as their paradise.

Man Godbound is weird to GM for.

[jintoya]

Right now my players are working on convincing the {Scrub the post, scrub the quote} equivalent of my world that she is wrong and eternally torturing souls is not cool. They are also working with her to go back in time to bring the Old Gods (who have only been dead for a year) back to life.

Other than that they are mostly just goofing off before their final battle against the leaders of the monsters from another dimension that have invaded their Fantasy world. Just doing things like helping towns defend against giants, build new races and relax a bit. Also messing around a bit with the astral plane that they claimed as their paradise.

Man Godbound is weird to GM for.

I had a setting like this.... It went straight to the far plane faster than you can say "wake the dreamers" I felt like some kind of elder being consumed by the consciousness of Oprah
"YOU get tentacles, and YOU get tentacles! EVERYBODY gets tentacles!"

[jdizzlean]

Note: My group is playing D&D 3.5e, and so my examples will be d20 centric, but shenanigans from any TTRPG are welcome

I have a very interesting group of players.

One of them, a Cleric, has become obsessed with Create Water. He has a Bag of Holding, and every day he spends all his Orisons to fill that sucker up with water. He's going to fill it with all 540 gallons that his BoH can hold... His intention is then to use it as a weapon by creating a small, controlled flood afterwards. He calls his bag "a portal to my Water Dimension".
.

FYI, 540 gallons is a little less than three caskets worth of water. In a 10x10 room that's going to be about 8 inches of water. The initial outpouring would likely be forceful though. And of course, don't let science get in the way of fun.

also, depending on what type of bag of holding you gave him, it can still only hold so much weight.

A gallon of water weighs 8.34 lbs. a cubic foot of water is equal to 7.48 gallons, or 62.42lbs

BoH lvl 1: can't hold more than 250lbs or 30 cubic ft. 29.9 gallons of water max
BoH lvl 2: 500lbs or 70 cubic ft. 59.9 gallons max
BoH lvl 3: 1000lbs or 150 cubic ft. 119.9 gallons max
BoH lvl 4: 1500lbs or 250 cubic ft. 179.8 gallons max


but that of course is using real world physics to apply to fantasy....


it's a neat idea, but doesn't work.
going over these limits ruins the bag and everything is just gone

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems...m#bagofHolding

[StevenC21]

He purchased 12 bags.

[jintoya]

He purchased 12 bags.

I had a player that did this, if they are leather, it's likely a bunch of bombs (6 actually)
take two things that blow up when mixed
put them in the bags, one inside the other
when you want it to go boom just shoot it with an arrow

If they are not, he might be making a trap for thieves, is the party rogue annoying him?

[farothel]

He purchased 12 bags.

Can't he just get one decanter of endless water? It's probably cheaper than 12 bags of holding and easier to use as it comes with the water pre-loaded.

Now, as to my player's fun story.
We were doing an Alternity Dark Matter campaign where the players would go to alternate realities and figure out what was going on there. In one reality I had lizard folk basically overrun the humans except for a few resistance cells in the north (where it was too cold for the lizards to operate at full capacity). At one point they needed some information from the local lizard HQ, which was on an abandoned airbase.

Now the party was: an ex-police officer, {Scrubbed}, a Daniel Jackson wanabe and a{Scrubbed} (he had done a 'seven years in Tibet' thing). In order to create a diversion if needed, they had the local resistance cell create some claymore mines ({Scrubbed} wasn't so sure about that but went along as they were quite outnumbered). They had placed one between the main building and the guard post with the idea if something went wrong, the guards would come investigate and they could 'stop' them.

At one point they had put the{Scrubbed} as spotter in the old control tower, while the rest was sneaking through the terminal building. They found the spot that the lizards had converted into a barracks and decided to hang a claymore at each door (if they opened the door, the thing would go boom). They had done this while the player of the budhist had gone to the bathroom, so he also didn't know anything.

As soon as the guards wake up and the alarm is sounded, I describe three explosions going off. The look on the face of the player of the {Scrubbed} was priceless. As were the one hour of philosophical discussions that accompanied the after action report.

[antiochcow]

Dungeons & Delvers: Black/Red Book using A Sundered World campaign setting

Party was looking to break a curse on an NPC and it was suggested that they find sunlight, a very rare commodity since the Sundering (apocalyptic event that destroyed the barriers between planes and mashed them all together). After doing some research the only source they could locate was in the corpse of the wolf that devoured the sun during the Sundering.

They buy a ship and sail there, and while hiking through the corpse (which to give you an idea of scale is about the size of a continent) they deal with wolves living in its bones, streptococcus zombies in the lungs, a giant raven looking for eyes, some giant white blood cell oozes, kraken-like monsters swimming in its stomach, a demonic monk also looking for sunlight, and the corpse of Sol entombed in a crashed, mechanical vessel.

They found the sunlight (as well as some other treasure) and broke the curse (simple exposure was apparently enough), and now need to make their way back out. If they can manage that, they'll then need to find a way to safely divide the sunlight without destroying it or causing a huge explosion (the dwarves who told them about it want a piece). But, if they can pull it off will have access to a very powerful source of energy.

Not sure what they plan on doing with it, yet, but I like surprises.

[Great Dragon]

The Half-Orc Eldritch Knight Kool Aid Man-ed then Thunderwaved a Patrol of Hobgoblins!!!

Hilarious!!!

Details in the Phandalin spoiler located:Ancient Realms